Lifting Smarter, Not Heavier

Many athletes believe that the only way to increase the difficulty of their weight routine is to simply increase the pounds that they are putting up. Though stacking more plates to your bar will obviously make the exercise harder, you will be missing out on other ways to improve your progression, such as your balance and stability. Since our clients work with us for an extended period of time, we’re able to create personalized programs that progress month to month, helping to develop the necessary supporting core strength and stability muscles and to eliminate asymmetries in the body.

Coach Henry broke down a few of the ways that we can make an exercise harder:

Take away stability (for example, going from a two-legged squat to a one-leg squat)

Using equipment that allows you to lift more weight (going from a kettlebell deadlift to a trap bar deadlift)

Increasing the range of motion (going from a lunge to a rear-foot elevated split squat)

Moving from bodyweight to resistance exercise (going from a push-up to dumbbell bench press)

Some exercises allow you to lift more weight, while others challenge your balance and stability more. The deadlift progression, for example, lets you increase the amount of weight you lift over time. Our single-leg progression, which goes from split squat to skater squat, challenges your balance and coordination over time. In fact, you'll get to the point where you hardly use any weight at all in the single-leg progression. That's because the exercise is so difficult that any added weight would make it nearly impossible.

We believe it's important that our clients progress at their own pace and some may never need these crazy single-leg exercises to achieve their goals! Our team is here to make sure that you are constantly being pushed to hit your goals safely.